


Clint Barton

by FemSanzo291



Series: Keeping Secrets [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: American Sign Language, Carson's circus, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Kid Clint Barton, Mental Link
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 08:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18752290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FemSanzo291/pseuds/FemSanzo291
Summary: When Clint Barton first met Alea Carter he had been a lost little child, When Clint stopped counting the meetings between the two he'd just joined SHIELD.





	1. 1979

**Author's Note:**

> Clint will have been born in 1970 for this fic.

Alea Cater walked down a street in New York thing about what to do with her time off. She knew that she had at least four more weeks before she would be allowed back into the lab.

 

That's when she saw a boy who was at most ten sitting up against a building. He looked like he had lived on the streets or at least worn the clothes for a few days.

 

Alea walked up to him and crouched down in front of him. He looked up at her with wide eyes.

 

He tried to move away from her, but she grabbed him with her flesh hand around his arm. He was thin, though not deathly so.

 

“Is there anywhere you want to go?” Alea assumed that he had run away, probably from foster care, and had come here to go to join the circus in town.

 

“I can't hear you.” The boy's voice was slurred much like he was deaf.

 

Alea grabbed him gently with her other arm before repeating her question in fingerspelling.

 

 _“I need to go to Carson's. The circus in town.”_ The boy responded with signs.

 

Alea nodded and lifted him.

 

_“You taking me?”_

 

 

She gave him a look that said obviously. She would have signed, but her hands were full of child.

 

 

She didn't take him straight there instead she took him to a medical supply store and found him a pair of hearing aids that fit him. The aids were bright purple, but it didn't seem to faze the boy. She helped him put them on and when she turned them on he could hear again.

 

“Thank you very much. My name is Clint.” Clint signed his name sign as he spoke it. Alea nodded and picked him up and took him back over to the circus. He asked her name and she told him before he ran off.

 

Alea knew now what she was going to do when she got back to do when suspended from the lab from now on, find that boy and make sure he was still alive.


	2. 1981

After two years Alea went to Carson's Circus for the first time since meeting Clint. It happened to be in Virginia. She walked in and kept an eye out for the boy, possibly teen.

 

When Alea made it to the big top after looking through the outer tents she noticed a sign for an archer. She looked at it and noticed that it looked like Clint. She found a set near the front of the crowd and watched the show.

 

When Clint’s act started she didn’t see the hearing aids, but from the look of him, he was better off than when she had last seen him. She pulls out a camera and takes a picture. She made sure to tuck the picture away so that it wasn’t damaged.

 

When the show was over she left and headed back to the hotel that she was staying at.


	3. 1986

When Alea went to Carson’s a few years later Clint’s act was no longer part of it. She asked around and it seemed like he had run away. They also told her that he left about six months before.

 

She started to think about the people that they were looking to recruit in the next few months. She thought that one of them might be him. If he had been trained to do trick shots and other things with a bow he would be useful to SHIELD.

 

That made Alea determined to find him. Wherever he might have gone after the circus she would find him. So she started to work on getting field certified to do so. Though that would be delayed by a scientist that pulls her interest towards space. 


	4. 1999

It took a long time to find Clint again, but when Coulson was sent to find a contract killer, called Robin Hood by SHIELD. It turned out to be Clint. He had strong enough morals that SHIELD wanted to hire him more than kill him. He didn't kill anyone where it wasn't already proven that they had done something to deserve it.

 

Once Coulson brought him in Alea went to look in on his interrogation. Coulson was using American Sign Language to talk to him and Alea was laughing at his poor signs. She knocked on the window and Coulson left the room.

 

Once Coulson entered the observance room Alea looked him up and down. “Coulson, why are you trying and failing to sign to him?”

 

Coulson pulled two familiar purple hearing aids. “When Garret and I went for the takedown they got knocked loose and broke. Though they seem like they would be much too small for him.”

 

Alea turns and looks over the man called Robin Hood. As she took in the man's appearance it was then when it dawned on her on why the aids were familiar to her. She had given them to him when he had been about eight years old.

 

“Coulson you stay here. I'm going to talk to him.” Coulson nods and lets her leave.

 

When she enters the interrogation room and moves to sit across from Robin Hood he looks up and his eyes go extremely wide.

 

“Know you.” He signed.

 

“Your name Clint Barton?” Clint nods and Alea gives a small smile.

 

“Your name. Never got it.” Clint’s hand movements were slow like he had to think for long periods about which signs to use.

 

“Alea Carter.” She finger spells it. Never having been given a name sign. Clint repeats it with steady hands.

 

“SHIELD can offer you things that would help. If you want join." Alea got to the point very quickly.

 

"What?" Clint's face showed shock as his hands shook.

 

"SHIELD has been looking for you for months. You kept us off trail for long enough to want you to join." Alea kept her hands steady and face impassive.

 

"What would be given to me in exchange?" 

 

"Roof over head, money, medical treatments, food, and dealing with scum of earth and putting them down."

  
"I join then." Alea holds out her hand and Clint takes it.

 

Clint joined SHIELD then and went through the academy in less than a year. He was sent on his first mission not long after.

 


End file.
